Behavior is the Truth

This is from Andrew Vachss‘s “Children’s book for Adults,” Another Chance to Get It Right. The title alone says a lot. We all have another chance, every day, to do the right thing. There is no absolution for past wrongs. The closest that comes to it are the good deeds we do today.

Children know the truthLove is not an emotionBehavior is the truth.

You can say I love you a thousand times, but if you call your kid “a piece of garbage” (as a childhood friend’s mother was fond of calling her son) it means nothing. To quote INXS, Words are weapons, sharper than knives. This article in Parade magazine says all that needs to be said: You Carry the Cure in Your Own Heart.We make our own monsters in abusive homes and prisons; we also make our own bullies in the checkout line and the dinner table, by teaching that belittlement and humiliation are valid corrective behavior. My friend Daniel B. O’Shea wrote long and heartfelt about the idiot father who shot up his 15 year old daughter’s laptop because she complained about chores on Facebook. If you raise a brat, look in the mirror. Do you throw a fit when the waitress is slow to refill your drink? Where did they learn this petulance from? Do you correct spoiled children by acting like spoiled children?

Like this:

Related

Post navigation

Thomas Pluck is the author of Bad Boy Boogie, a Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller, and the Anthony finalist editor of Protectors 2: Heroes.

He has slung hash, trained in martial arts in America and Japan, worked on the docks, and even swept the Guggenheim museum (but not as part of a clever heist). He hails from Nutley, New Jersey, the birthplace of criminal masterminds Martha Stewart and Richard Blake, but has so far evaded capture. He remains a fugitive with his wife and their two cats.

The Plucking News

Subscribe to The Plucking News for infrequent updates on upcoming events and publications.
Click here to Subscribe.